If you're ever in Newport - no not Newport Beach - Newport - in Oregon. It's the biggest city (well, city... pop. 8,000 or so) on the Oregon Coast. Anyway, If you go down to the waterfront, go ahead and walk past Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Keep going, almost to the end of the road. Where it ends, and there's an intersecting road that goes up the hill. Up the hill to what passes for Downtown Newport (pop. ~8,000). Down near the end of the road, on the waterfront side, you'll come to Newport Shrimp. The biggest fishbuyer in Newport. On the ground floor there's a big picture window. Inside, you can see the big stainless steel table, supplied by conveyor belt with a seemingly endless stream of shrimp. At the table there are a number of workers - dressed almost surgically; apron, gloves, paper cap, mask. There they do their shift sorting shrimp. Sorting them into cagegories. There are 150 ct. shrimp, 120 ct., 80 ct., 50 ct., 30 ct., 15 ct. shrimp. Millions of shrimp- perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of shrimp. At Newport Shrimp the shrimp are landed, unloaded from the boats, 'veined', cooked, sorted, and packed.
At the end of their shift the workers de-garb; de-mask, de-cap, de-glove, de-apron. And then they leave, carrying the aroma of shrimp with them. In ordinary clothing, you can see that they are what in Oregon are called 'Mexicans'. Foreigners. Non-whites. To say that they are a despised minority is to understate the feelings of the more xenophobic of the locals, some of whom like to complain loudly, like Newt Gingrich, that these 'Mexicans' are looting, raping, murdering the good Oregonians.
I never spent a lot of time watching the sorting at Newport Shrimp. I had work of my own to do, and it took no time at all to see that I wouldn't take that job for any amount of money. Not because I don't like money. Simply put, I wouldn't even last one shift at that table.
In the United States we're raised to think of our work as our life, and our life as our work. Career. Job Satisfaction. It's taught by our families, our schools, our peers, our entertainments; everything tells us we need to find satisfaction in our work. With this belief, work such as sorting shrimp, or picking lettuce, or digging ditches, or washing dishes - it all becomes impossible to accept. Incommensurable with our beliefs. The only people who can bear to do such work are those who still have the old notion. Work is for survival, not for satisfaction. Satisfaction comes from family and friends. A circle of friends; something solid and close - not a 'network' of friends; so vague and amorphous.
Simply put; you'll need plain-and-simple workers if you have plain-and-simple work to be done - and you'll have to find them in societies where people still live in extended families, where life satisfaction is not dependent on work, but dependent on family and friends. Where people don't believe work is supposed to be satisfying and fun; where they work for a living, and have fun for fun. Where work is external to life, not integral to it. Where it's still okay to punch a time clock. Where they haven't been taught that work is supposed to be emotionally rewarding.
If you really get rid of the workers who sort the shrimp at the big stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp - you'd better be ready and willing to accept the shrimp shipped to your deli case from China. Because you aren't going to get any shrimp from the inside the closed-border USA. Or Lettuce. Or your yard redesigned. Or service in your local fine restaurant. Don't kid yourself. You wouldn't last a shift on that stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp any more than I could.
At the end of their shift the workers de-garb; de-mask, de-cap, de-glove, de-apron. And then they leave, carrying the aroma of shrimp with them. In ordinary clothing, you can see that they are what in Oregon are called 'Mexicans'. Foreigners. Non-whites. To say that they are a despised minority is to understate the feelings of the more xenophobic of the locals, some of whom like to complain loudly, like Newt Gingrich, that these 'Mexicans' are looting, raping, murdering the good Oregonians.
I never spent a lot of time watching the sorting at Newport Shrimp. I had work of my own to do, and it took no time at all to see that I wouldn't take that job for any amount of money. Not because I don't like money. Simply put, I wouldn't even last one shift at that table.
In the United States we're raised to think of our work as our life, and our life as our work. Career. Job Satisfaction. It's taught by our families, our schools, our peers, our entertainments; everything tells us we need to find satisfaction in our work. With this belief, work such as sorting shrimp, or picking lettuce, or digging ditches, or washing dishes - it all becomes impossible to accept. Incommensurable with our beliefs. The only people who can bear to do such work are those who still have the old notion. Work is for survival, not for satisfaction. Satisfaction comes from family and friends. A circle of friends; something solid and close - not a 'network' of friends; so vague and amorphous.
Simply put; you'll need plain-and-simple workers if you have plain-and-simple work to be done - and you'll have to find them in societies where people still live in extended families, where life satisfaction is not dependent on work, but dependent on family and friends. Where people don't believe work is supposed to be satisfying and fun; where they work for a living, and have fun for fun. Where work is external to life, not integral to it. Where it's still okay to punch a time clock. Where they haven't been taught that work is supposed to be emotionally rewarding.
If you really get rid of the workers who sort the shrimp at the big stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp - you'd better be ready and willing to accept the shrimp shipped to your deli case from China. Because you aren't going to get any shrimp from the inside the closed-border USA. Or Lettuce. Or your yard redesigned. Or service in your local fine restaurant. Don't kid yourself. You wouldn't last a shift on that stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp any more than I could.
1 comment:
Frank my friend. I have never been to your little corner of the world. “Believe it or not”, as many places as I have been, I haven’t made it to the Oregon coast. I don’t know what kind of work ethic you have grown up around, or for that fact, is represented by people of Oregon. I can tell you that you did not come from the rust belt.
I grew up in the Steel capital and automotive center of the world. At least it was till all the jobs picked up and went to Mexico. I live very near the factory, Timken, where shortly after a campaign visit from our very own G.W. the plant closed. Sent the jobs to Mexico and Indonesia. In this part of the world doing, “the job Americans don’t want to do” is a way of life. I myself have done much of the “simple work”. My first job was feeding and then cleaning the stalls of horses. (There is plenty of agriculture and faming nestled in between factories.) It was great for jobs security. I left high school with one of two occupations in mind. I was either going to be a rock star or a pirate. So I worked some dozys. I had a job that crawled around in the sludge inside a machine. I’ve ground wrenches in hot nasty coolant water, worked in a shop where the floor was coated with a half inch of oil. You got to watch for the fork lifts in that place. I have worked 90 days in a row once. On the 91st day I saw my name on the schedule and was on my way to quit when a co-worker informed me he would take my shift. I worked in a “powder coating factory” that I would emerge from every day looking like a coal minor. My lungs was so think with crap I could barely choke my cigarette down. There were a few jobs I did even after I had my degree, the last was digging ditches for the cable company by hand. (This was only a few yrs ago and I am in my 30’s.) I had to fight with this Mexican team for the shorter runs. ( It was subcontract job, so no identification was required.) Oh Yah, Sort some shrimp? I work on the great lakes. I have spent some stormy days on the water where I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. My reward? I got to come back to the fishery where I am given the “opportunity” to scale, gut, and cut the heads off the perch for some extra dough. Sort them? Ha!
I have some of the easier jobs. One of my friends spent 52 hours straight cutting fish in a cold shack in late October. The fish were biting and every person who owned a boat got out for that last outing. I have friends who work in these pristine steel and auto jobs. Not a pretty site. I have one friend who had hot molten steel dumped on his head. He suffered burns over 80% of his body, and lost 3 fingers on his right hand. I could go on all day long with butcher shops, hay bailers, and various versions of factory situation. Everybody leaves school vowing not to end up in these jobs. An idea that looks good on paper. I don’t know too many people who do the work they want to be doing today. I have been around the country and the world for that fact. Most people in general are willing to do what needs to be done. However, they can not afford to “work” when the job puts them further behind. If it cost you $35,000 per year minimal to make ends meet, then anything less is actually wasting time you could use find a job that pays. When somebody comes in and is able to work for half that, because they live in the slums with 15 family members, and don’t pay taxes, then you devalue the actual cost of the labor.
When you tell me that people wouldn’t sort shrimp in your area “for any amount of money” , I wonder what is wrong with you people. However, If the employers have offered to pay the local living wage for the job at hand, and nobody applies, then they can go to the labor services and request “x” amount of employees to do the job. That is how the law works and how to keep things fair.
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